and settlement, represented by Sir Walter Raleigh, Hendrik Hudson, and Peter Minuit, down to more modern times, represented by Stephen Girard, the founder of the school for orphan boys, and the volunteers of the Civil War under the leadership of Meade and Hancock. Many men are assembled in this great painting, and yet it is not a crowd; each is a distinct individual, and yet they all belong to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The three chief men of Pennsylvania, William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Morris, stand in the center upon a rock on which are fittingly engraved these words from the Bible, which call to mind the lessons and inspiration of the past:

Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father and he will show thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee."

When the lawmakers look toward the speaker they face this reminder that history is only the story of great men, and that the measure of greatness is the worth of one's work for others. When they lift their eyes to the ceiling they see the painted dome of the heavens, around which pass in a circle the hours of the day and night-the former, bright, dancing figures, followed by the dark hours, gliding forms shrouded in heavy, sweeping mantles. To the left and right of the central painting are panels showing "Penn's Treaty with the Indians" and "The Reading of the Declaration," the latter finished by Abbey's pupils after his death in 1911.

"How wonderful it is that Abbey is able always to observe directly figures, scenes, and places that exist only in the fairyland of his

fancy!" exclaimed Henry James. It was, indeed, true that as he thought of things he saw them-the far-away drew near, and the veils of mist changed into lovely form and color. The "stately palace, the name of which was Beautiful" was no unsubstantial mirage that receded as he tried to enter it. His imagination was balanced by his sense of life, by his instinct for seeking the ideal in the real. I like to think this was because he was an American as well as a true artist of the beautiful.

In the afternoons, when the lengthening shadows put an end to the day's work, Abbey often went out on the lawn for a game of cricket-the sport that tried in its conservative English way to take the place of baseball. Once, when the painter was on a visit to New York, he went into a sporting-goods house and bought a supply of baseball bats, balls, masks, and gloves which he took back to England with him.

"We'll see what can be done about organizing a nine on the other side," he said.

"If you really get baseball thoroughly established in your adopted country, there will be nothing to bring you back to America even for an occasional visit," protested one of his friends.

"You can't lose so easily one who was 'born and bred in the brier-patch!" was the laughing reply. "I'll be an American under the skin, you know."

It is certainly true that it was the American in Abbey which, added to his genius, made him able to clothe his dreams in such persuasive reality that, when we look at his pictures, we are able to enter into the spirit of the scene he presents as if it were a part of the life we know. So it is that he takes us with him into the Palace Beautiful.

WHEN the snowflakes begin to dance over the hills, Chickadee comes out of his summer pasture and hurries around to our house. He remembers there used to be some suet on the old pine-tree by the back door. Yes, the string is there still, but not one billful of the suet is left! He investigates

their turn in the pantry. Two tidy nuthatches always come together. A gray junco, shyer than the rest, ventures up when he thinks no one is looking. He has no taste for doughnuts, but the basket full of hay-seed makes his little black eyes shine. The downy woodpecker, with a smart red feather in his cap, is something of a highbrow. He prefers his suet on the pine-tree-the table is too noisy and crowded for him. From afar a pair of fat blue-jays survey the banquet and watch their chance to carry off some of the goodies, a manoeuver executed with considerable dash and much flashing of blue wings. Sammy, the rascally red squirrel, occasionally "butts in," and is roundly scolded by everybody.

Breakfast and supper are the most popular meal-times, and lively tête-a-têtes go on across the table in the cold twilights. After the snowfall of the night, the first footprint on the doorstep is Chickadee's. He is very fond of the back porch, and the Packard box of grain in the corner. It makes a cozy shelter when the blizzard comes.

THE TÊTE-A-TÊTE

the window-sills, upstairs and down-no seeds anywhere, not a doughnut in sight. Perhaps the folks had not expected him so soon.

Chickadee dee dee!

Can't you folks see

I'm here

But where 's the suet? Dee, Dee!

"Hello, Chickadee," cry the small folks at the window, "we 've got lots of sunflower seeds saved up for you, and Mother is going to order that suet right away. There is n't a single doughnut in the house, but Aunt Sally will be making some tomorrow, so you 'd better stay around."

Chickadee does stay around, and presently an old table appears outside the window. And after the north wind lays a sparkling white tablecloth, friendly hands spread the feast-sunflower seeds, suet, cornmeal, chaff from the barn, bits of dogbread, nut meats, and a crusty brown doughnut.

Then Chickadee makes merry. All his friends and acquaintances are invited, and a dozen or more little black-capped fellows dine togethertill the tree sparrows blow in and declare it is

CHICKADEE, TREE-SPARROW, AND JUNCO

How eagerly the little fellows crowd in and make themselves at home on the old rustic chair! The hillside is a fury of wind and snow, but here,

watched by friendly faces at the door, they shake the snowflakes from their feathers, catch their breath, and hastily eat their fill at the food-box. Then, as the night comes, they whirl away in the blast-who knows where?

It takes a very bad blizzard, indeed, to make Chickadee even the least bit discouraged. We never saw him really disconcerted but once, and that was in a driving rain. He blew into the porch as though in desperation, and clung to the arm of the old chair, drenched and breathless, a very much bedraggled "scrap of valor." For several minutes, it seemed, he did not move. Then suddenly shaking himself, he began methodically to preen his feathers, and at last, fluffy and cheery again, sampled some sunflower seeds,

"SAMMY, THE RED SQUIRREL OCCASIONALLY 'BUTTS IN'"

gurgled a jolly "Dee dee," as though amused at himself for so nearly losing his wits, and darted away in the storm.

"Windy wild weathers
Ruffle my feathers.
The storm is so stout
It blows me about
A toy of the air;
But little I care!

"My heart is so small
It has n't at all
Room for a fear,
Only good cheer,
Courage and glee.
Chickadee dee!
Zee dee!
Love me!"

CHAPTER XII

ON THE HILLSIDE

Now we are to see what happened on the hillside after Lorenzo had indignantly kicked the doll's trunk off into space.

Instantly, El Señor Carlos had drawn himself up to his full height. There was no little resolution in the way he folded his arms across his broad chest and fixed Lorenzo with a stern and forbidding eye.

"It is death, then!" Lorenzo thought. But no, death was not to be the penalty.

No longer, however, was there any languor or indifference about El Señor Carlos. Even his soft mood had vanished. He pointed a stern finger down the cañon, where Rosita's wardrobe lay lightly scattered over the landscape!

Lorenzo paused for moment. El Señor Carlos held Rosita carefully with one hand. Now the other was-yes-at the pistol in his belt! "Do not linger, Lorenzo!"

And Lorenzo descended.

Then it was that El Señor Carlos laughed. He leaned against a convenient oak-tree, and sounds of mirth reverberated in the little cañon.

"Do not forget the treasure-chest, amigo," [friend] he called out after his protégé's departing back.

So Lorenzo paid the penalty for his impulsiveness. On hands and knees he crept through the chaparral. The doll's trunk had rolled to the very bottom of the cañon. Lorenzo now rolled after it. He bruised his shins and tore his clothes -he, the most exquisite of bandidos! The doll's raiment her frocks, her sashes, her rebosos and mantillas, her gloves, her embroidered shawls, her high combs, her chains and ribbons, her camisas

of sheer linen, her jackets and bodices, her cloaks, her handkerchiefs, her boots and slippers, her silk stockings, and all the rest of her elaborate belongings-strewed the little ravine from top to bottom. The dejected Lorenzo picked up everything.

He groped among the ferns, scratched his hands on the wild-rose thorns, impaled himself upon the Spanish bayonet (with its unkind, barbed spikes), and crawled underneath the manzanita bushes, in order to restore every little shoe, slipper, and stocking to its mate. Not that Lorenzo cared-no, indeed! A quail, marshaling her young family out of danger, heard him say distinctly, "Would that the creature had but one leg!" But would Lorenzo have cared to return to El Señor Carlos with an odd shoe, for example?

CHAPTER XIII

THE FIESTA

IT was the day that Doña Ysabella Medrano and Don Felipe Alvarez were to be married at the Mission. Many had come from far off, from neighboring pueblos or distant ranchos, to attend this great wedding, which was to be followed by a splendid fiesta at Don Pedro Valencia's house under the magnolias. All that morning carretas drawn by bullocks (for you must remember that Aunt Serafina owned the only carriage that had ever been seen in Santa Barbara), filled to overflowing with laughing guests, had jogged and rumbled into the little town. Except for cushions and rugs, which were placed upon the floor of the vehicle to provide seats for the ladies in their silk dresses, these carretas, with their solid wooden wheels, were as rude and clumsy as Ximeno's ox-cart. But no one seemed to mind